We are not aware that
we are exercising our choice every minute. We take it as a way of life. There
are literally thousands of occasions where one can witness two families - or
individuals - of comparable circumstances at the end of thirty years of career
separated by a vast social distance - one living cosily in a rural town enjoying
the local social status and the other in Delhi or Washington riding the waves
of social prestige in several fields. It is made possible by the conscious
exercise of choice at every minute. The short term gain vs. long term benefit;
the occasion to exert vs. the least line of resistance; the courage to embrace
the new vs. the cosy comfort of tradition; the readiness to risk vs. the sense
of security, etc. etc.

Those who prosper will look at the world from their highest responsibilities. Those
who refuse to prosper will always attribute their failure to external
circumstances. A man resigned his government job of Rs. 250 to accept a
temporary post of three months on Rs. 750 in a tea estate. The estate
owner’s sound advice was of no avail. Now with an MA he was eking out his
living running a grinder shop. That is the lure of temporary gain called myopic
vision. Man is not aware that at every moment he is making a choice. Buried in
infinite opportunities of excellent success to raise one’s school to be
the very best in the world, one makes prudent choices of doing better than
other schools. This is so because one expresses her active violent nerves,
instead of using her highly educated mind. No example is of any service here.
Before your very eyes, you see people rising in a few years from Rs. 350 income
to Rs. 35,000 income because of good nature. The capacity to complain against
everyone and everything and blaming the horoscope keeps the other where he was
forty years ago. Choose the RIGHT, the GOOD, the PLEASANT, the VALUABLE and
that is the ladder for progress. If you complain, whine, bark, are lazy,
compete or ascribe your failure to others, you constantly slide down. ‘‘It
is my rasi,’’ is a common comment we hear. I would say it is your
temperament, your choice. Evil, meanness, deceit, violence, cruelty, tyranny,
falsehood, MONEY VALUE, mercenary attitude, short temper, greed, demand,
desire, craving, suspicious nature, doubt, sloth, etc. have never paid social
dividends.